**5. Conclusions**

Digital and Sustainable are among the most discussed topics in recent years and their simultaneous implementation will be a challenge and opportunity for the near future. Digital transitions should help redraw the boundaries of our world in a more "*sustainable*" way. Of course, technology itself does not mobilize itself towards transformations of sustainability, since a strong political will is needed to create pathways capable of engaging these perspectives. Furthermore, digital technologies are not innocent in the progressive worsening of the state of our planet and the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, there is also a topic related to the impact of digital technologies. The perception of the relationship between risk and benefit remains a complicated aspect to assess. However, in the long term, the benefits will outweigh the risks, as it is easy to imagine if the use of technologies is accompanied by responsible use. In conclusion, the present study underlines the link between sustainability and digitalization and make people understand that correct management of the life cycle requires innovation. Technologies, in fact, are able to optimize the use of resources, reducing waste, simplifying processes, and making the use of infrastructures sustainable. It is, therefore, necessary to connect these two issues to achieve what will be the smart sustainable factories capable of bringing a triple economic, environmental and social advantage.

## **Conflict of interest**

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

## **Author details**

Fabio De Felice and Antonella Petrillo\* Department of Engineering, University of Naples "Parthenope", Naples, Italy

\*Address all correspondence to: antonella.petrillo@uniparthenope.it

© 2021 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
